The basics

The Runaways is the feisty, underwritten tale of the all-girl teenage rock band who changed the face of rock history in the late 1970s before imploding in a haze of drug-taking, jealousy and inter-band recrimination. Written and shot by Italian-Canadian music video director Floria Sigismondi, here making her feature debut, the film features Twilight's Kristen Stewart as singer-guitarist Joan Jett, who would go on to international fame with her own band, the Blackhearts, and Dakota Fanning as lead singer Cherie Currie, whose eventual departure led to the group's split.

The stakes

If Sigismondi is hoping to ape film-makers such as Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Zack Snyder by making the jump from music videos to film, The Runaways needs to find some degree of critical favour. And yet it's surely Fanning upon whom all eyes will be focused. This is the first real adult role for the former child star of War of the Worlds and Charlotte's Web. Currie was an electrifying stage presence, with charisma and attitude in spades. Will Fanning be able to rock the mic right?

The buzz

The Runaways debuted at last year's Sundance film festival, where it was fairly well received. "I'll be blunt about this: I really wasn't looking forward to this movie," wrote Kevin Kelly of cinematical.com. "Hey, at least I'm big enough to admit I was wrong. The Runaways rocked the Joan Jett/Cherie Currie backstory's pants off (literally)."

Meanwhile, at the festival itself, Jett herself turned up to play a live show with the Blackhearts, which was duly attended by Fanning and Stewart. Much fuss, was made, inevitably, of the rock chick look being sported by both young women, and yet neither the film's positive critical reception, nor the star names on board, were enough to gift the film a wide release in the US.

In fact, it stumbled to $3.5m in the US on a $10m budget, before heading to DVD.

The bitching

The LA Times' Betsy Sharkey is not buying Fanning as a snarling sex kitten. "[She] is absolutely wrong as Cherie," she dismisses. "Fifteen when the film was being shot, in a bustier and fishnets and heavy makeup, she looks like an innocent lured off Hollywood Boulevard for child porn, not the growling sex machine that – at least on stage – Currie was."

The fawning

Most critics have been kinder, however, and the film currently maintains a 68% "fresh" rating on the review aggregator site rottentomatoes.com. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw writes: "There are some cliches (drugs on tour, montage showing the band climbing up the charts) and perhaps Fanning looks a little fragile, but the film interestingly and sympathetically shows the human cost to Jett and Currie, who could never quite be sure if they had reached the promised land of stardom or not."

"This isn't an in-depth biopic, even though it's based on Currie's 1989 autobiography," writes Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times. "It's more of a quick overview of the creation, rise and fall of the Runaways, with slim character development, no extended dialogue scenes, and a whole lot of rock'n'roll. Its interest comes from Michael Shannon's fierce and sadistic training scenes as [the Runaways' manager] Kim Fowley, and from the intrinsic qualities of the performances by Stewart and Fanning, who bring more to their characters than the script provides."

The punters

A lot of people are re-tweeting Total Film's guide to the film, perhaps the most interesting section of which is a diatribe from Currie herself at Sigismondi's willingness to sidestep historical accuracy. "I couldn't understand how someone who wasn't there could even touch what it was like or the pivotal moments in the Runaways," said Currie. "But she's a very artsy director, so it's all about the visual and the impact that she, who didn't live it, felt would be important."

The prognosis

The Runaways is notable for strong performances from Stewart and Fanning, even if the latter doesn't quite nail Currie's onstage verve. For a film that's supposedly all about girl power, however, it's ironic that Shannon's Rowley is the most vital spark, a looming spitball of rampant masculinity in the form of an eyeliner-sporting glam-rock grandad. Whenever he's off screen, the movie sags.

Furthermore, much like the short career of the band itself, the film feels flimsy, throwaway: the ember of future greatness, but not the blazing fire. It's possible that there really was not much more of a story to tell here, but two things are significant. Firstly, the Runaways' career in the film seems to be over in around six months, rather than the four years of reality. Secondly, despite segues of lesbian love-making, masturbation, urination, drug-taking and bad language, all of which involve young women who are still in their mid teens, the movie still manages to feel a little sanitised and under-developed. Perhaps that's because the real-life Runaways were also playing at being bad girls, rather than being truly nasty, but the film doesn't shock as it ought to, and leaves us wondering how much has been left out. Still, as the simple biopic of a band that burned the candle until it could burn no more, it works well enough as lightweight entertainment.